Interactions layer in a web application builder framework

ABSTRACT

Disclosed are examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products for providing an interactions layer in a web application builder framework. A database system maintains a database associated with a number of web application builder components, each with one or more attributes and one or more component behaviors, for constructing web application components based on user input. The system displays a user interface with development areas comprising one or more web application builder components. Based on a user request to select a web application builder component in some form, the system prevents one or more component behaviors of the web application builder component, determines one or more builder component behaviors for the component based on the form of selecting the component, and presents the component in the user interface according to a form corresponding to the one or more builder component behaviors.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure as it appears in the United States Patent andTrademark Office patent file or records but otherwise reserves allcopyright rights whatsoever.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This patent document generally relates to non-relational databasesystems, and more specifically to providing an interactions layer in aweb application builder framework.

BACKGROUND

“Cloud computing” services provide shared resources, applications, andinformation to computers and other devices upon request. In cloudcomputing environments, services can be provided by one or more serversaccessible over the Internet rather than installing software locally onin-house computer systems. As such, users having a variety of roles caninteract with cloud computing services.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The included drawings are for illustrative purposes and serve only toprovide examples of possible structures and operations for the disclosedinventive systems, apparatus, methods and computer program products forproviding an interactions layer in a web application builder framework.These drawings in no way limit any changes in form and detail that maybe made by one skilled in the art without departing from the spirit andscope of the disclosed implementations.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an example of a system 100 forproviding an interactions layer in a web application builder framework,in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 200 for providing aweb application builder framework in a database system, performed inaccordance with some implementations

FIG. 3 shows an example of a web application builder constructed with aweb application builder framework, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a web application builder framework, inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 5 shows an example layout of web application builder components ina web application builder framework, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 600 for providing abase editor component in a web application builder framework, performedin accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 7 shows an example layout of a base editor with configurablecomponents in a web application builder, in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 800 for providing aproperty editor component in a web application builder framework,performed in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a property editor constructed with a webapplication builder framework, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 1000 for providingan interactions layer in a web application builder framework, performedin accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 11A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service can be used in accordance with someimplementations.

FIG. 11B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 11A and various possible interconnections between theseelements.

FIG. 12A shows a system diagram of an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 900, inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 12B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environment,in accordance with some implementations.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Examples of systems, apparatus, methods and computer program productsaccording to the disclosed implementations are described in thissection. These examples are being provided solely to add context and aidin the understanding of the disclosed implementations. It will thus beapparent to one skilled in the art that implementations may be practicedwithout some or all of these specific details. In other instances,certain operations have not been described in detail to avoidunnecessarily obscuring implementations. Other applications arepossible, such that the following examples should not be taken asdefinitive or limiting either in scope or setting.

In the following detailed description, references are made to theaccompanying drawings, which form a part of the description and in whichare shown, by way of illustration, specific implementations. Althoughthese implementations are described in sufficient detail to enable oneskilled in the art to practice the disclosed implementations, it isunderstood that these examples are not limiting, such that otherimplementations may be used and changes may be made without departingfrom their spirit and scope. For example, the operations of methodsshown and described herein are not necessarily performed in the orderindicated. It should also be understood that the methods may includemore or fewer operations than are indicated. In some implementations,operations described herein as separate operations may be combined.Conversely, what may be described herein as a single operation may beimplemented in multiple operations.

Some implementations of the disclosed systems, apparatus, methods andcomputer program products are configured for providing an interactionslayer in a web application builder framework.

Web database environments that allow web applications to be presented tousers directly within a browser or other web viewing experience are verypopular for several reasons. They allow sophisticated web applications,connected to databases such as multi-tenant databases populated withmany millions of records, to be deployed and presented to users on theirdevices effortlessly, without requiring any download or installation ofthe application locally. As such web application environments andframeworks gained in popularity, it became increasingly desirable fordevelopers and companies to be able to create their own custom webapplications and pages in such environments and frameworks. In someinstances, “application builders” became available, allowing developersand non-developers (or “admins”) to create such applications and pagesusing a set of reusable building blocks. For example, a developer may beable to drag-and-drop page components such as a chat window or a clockwidget onto a development area, with the application builderconstructing a custom web application according to those specifications,with working chat window or clock widget as the developer requested.

While such application builders may provide a flexible set of reusableblocks for many application purposes, many other more specificapplications may be desirable for developers and admins that falloutside of the generic set of building blocks. For example, a developermay want to specifically create a community application using acommunity builder, complete with message forums and social mediafunctionality, or a utility bar editor for creating all sorts of utilitybars with various pieces of functional components in them.

By way of illustration, Acme is a company that uses a databaseenvironment called Optimum Sales Builder for designing sophisticated webexperiences for its marketing campaigns. Optimum Sales Builder has aservice called Application Builder that allows Acme to createapplications, and Acme has done so to create a web front for itsproducts using some simple building blocks provided in the ApplicationBuilder. However, next Acme is interested in creating a Help & Supportapplication specifically for its customers to ask questions, receivehelp, and connect live to technical support agents to address theirneeds. While Application Builder provides great functionality forgenerally building web fronts, it does not provide the componentsnecessary for the more specification application of a Technical SupportApplication Builder, including components for routing and connecting tolive chats with technical support agents, components for building andmaintaining web forums, and more. Acme also has other needs for aCommunity Builder and several other applications that require a morespecialized set of building components than what Application Builderoffers. Acme wonders if Optimum Sales Builder can provide suchspecialized builders. Optimum Sales Builder in turn wonders whether itcan work on an “Application Builder Builder” that doesn't just providethe means to construct web applications, but provides the means toconstruct the application builders themselves. That way, using the samereusable building blocks that were used to construct the ApplicationBuilder, it can easily create a Community Builder, Technical SupportBuilder, and dozens of other builders for various needs of its clients.

Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to provide a webapplication builder framework in a database system. A collection ofreusable components (“web application builder components”) can bepresented on a reusable, configurable canvas or user interface forcreating “application builders”, i.e., tools that can be used forcreating web applications and pages. A multi-tenant database ismaintained, containing the web application builder components. A userinterface is displayed with a selectable list of a subset of the webapplication builder components. The database system processes a userrequest to select a web application builder component from the list tobe implemented in one or more development areas within the userinterface. These components are then presented within the developmentareas. In some implementations, an operable web application builder isimplemented and displayed, with the web application builder componentoperable in the one or more development areas.

Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to provide a baseeditor component in a web application builder framework. In someimplementations, the base editor component is a configurable componentof the framework that can handle binding reusable builder piecestogether, using a client side metadata model. Using a maintainedmulti-tenant database of web application builder components, thedatabase system first processes a user request to add to or modify oneor more attributes of a web application builder component. The databasesystem then retrieves a metadata model associated with the webapplication builder component, containing one or more nodescorresponding to the attributes of the web application buildercomponent. The metadata model is then modified by adding or editing oneor more nodes based on the user request. The modified metadata model isthen stored in one or more server databases.

Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to provide for aproperty editor in a web application builder framework. In someimplementations, the property editor component can dynamically generatea list of configurable fields, allowing users to configure properties ofvarious types for reusable components. Using a multi-tenant database ofweb application builder components, the database system processes a userrequest to generate a property editor component within the webapplication builder framework, including one or more user-definedproperty fields, each associated with at least a text label and userinput field. A property editor is then generated based on the userrequest, and a web application builder framework is displayed,implementing the property editor component on a client device.

Some of the disclosed techniques can be implemented to provide for aninteractions layer in a web application builder framework. In someimplementations, the interactions layer handles user interactions duringthe composition of a page. The interactions layer overrides the behaviorof reusable components during design time in a web application builderframework, to allow the user to interact with components for designingpurposes rather than triggering their various component behaviors. Auser interface is displaying containing one or more development areas.User input corresponding to selecting a web application component isprocessed. The database system then prevents one or more componentbehaviors of the web application component, and determines one or morebuilder component behaviors for the component to be performed instead.The component is then presented in the user interface according to aform corresponding to the one or more builder component behaviors.

Applying some implementations of the disclosed techniques, analternative scenario to that described above is provided. In thisalternative scenario, Optimum Sales Builder is able to implement an“Application Builder Framework” that is designed to constructapplication builders using a set of reusable, configurable webapplication builder components, including a base editor, propertyeditor, interactions layer, and more. Using this framework, OptimumSales Builder constructs a Technical Support Builder and CommunityBuilder and provides them to its clients, including Acme. Using thesebuilder tools, Acme can develop its technical support and communityapplications for its customers.

In some but not all implementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus,systems, and computer-readable storage media may be configured ordesigned for use in a multi-tenant database environment or system.

The term “multi-tenant database system” can refer to those systems inwhich various elements of hardware and software of a database system maybe shared by one or more customers. For example, a given applicationserver may simultaneously process requests for a great number ofcustomers, and a given database table may store rows of data such asfeed items for a potentially much greater number of customers. The term“query plan” generally refers to one or more operations used to accessinformation in a database system.

FIG. 1 shows a system diagram of an example of a system 100 forproviding a web application builder framework in a database system, inaccordance with some implementations. System 100 includes a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components which are in communicationwith each other. In the non-limiting example of FIG. 1, system 100includes at least one enterprise server 104, at least one client system108, at least one multi-tenant database 112, and at least one componentdatabase 116.

Multi-tenant database 112 can allow for storage and retrieval of largesets of data. The multi-tenant database 112 can be a databaseimplemented in HBase or other non-relational database management system.This database can include one or more records for each of a plurality ofenterprises (also referred to as organizations, or tenants.) In someimplementations, the database can include one or more shared tables, inwhich multiple enterprises have records in the same table, and sharemany of the same standard objects and columns for their records. In someimplementations, each enterprise is associated with a tenant_id thatprovides unique identification for that particular enterprise in themulti-tenant database 112. For example, the entity Acme may have atenant_id of “123” which uniquely identifies Acme as associated with arecord or object. No other tenant within a shared table may have thesame tenant_id.

Component database 116 is a database that stores a plurality of webcomponents. In some implementations, the components are for use in webapplications, web application builders, and/or the web applicationbuilder framework. In some implementations, component database 116 maystore one or more web application components, web application buildercomponents, or both. In some implementations, component database 116stores one or more pieces of metadata relating to the web components. Insome implementations, component database 116 stores a metadata model forone or more of the web components. In some implementations, the metadatamodel is in tree structure, with the nodes of the tree consisting ofattributes or properties of the web components.

Enterprise server 104 may communicate with other components of system100. This communication may be facilitated through a combination ofnetworks and interfaces. Enterprise server 104 may handle and processdata requests from the client system 108. Likewise, enterprise server104 may return a response to client system 108 after a data request hasbeen processed. For example, enterprise server 104 may retrieve datafrom one or more databases, such as the multi-tenant database 112 or thecomponent database 116. It may combine some or all of the data fromdifferent databases, and send the processed data to client system 108.

Client system 108 may be a computing device capable of communicating viaone or more data networks with a server. Examples of client system 108include a desktop computer or portable electronic device such as asmartphone, a tablet, a laptop, a wearable device such as Google Glass®,another optical head-mounted display (OHMD) device, a smart watch, etc.Client system 108 includes at least one browser in which applicationsmay be deployed.

FIG. 2 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 200 for providing aweb application builder framework in a database system, performed inaccordance with some implementations. Method 200 and other methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using system 100 of FIG. 1, althoughthe implementations of such methods are not limited to system 100.

At block 210, system 100 maintains a multi-tenant database 112identifying web application builder components. In some implementations,the multi-tenant database 112 is shared by multiple enterprises. In someimplementations, the multiple enterprises are each users of the system100 and may be able to store and process data in the form of records.The records may be part of a shared table of the multi-tenant database112. In some implementations, the web application builder components areconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder framework,and are further configured to construct a plurality of web applicationcomponents based on user input. In some implementations, one or morepieces of metadata may be stored in the multi-tenant database 112 inrelation to the web application builder components. In someimplementations, a metadata model may be stored for one or more of theweb application builder components.

At block 220, system 100 displays a user interface for the webapplication builder framework. In some implementations, the userinterface includes a selectable list of a subset of the web applicationbuilder components. In some implementations, the user interface includesone or more “development areas”. Development areas represent a workingarea for the developers or admins constructing a web applicationbuilder. In some implementations, a development area allows for theplacement of page or web application design elements, including theplacement of web application builder components. In someimplementations, the selectable list of web application buildercomponents may be a palette editor. A palette editor shows all of theavailable web application builder components in a palette, toolbar,list, or other form of displaying the components.

At block 230, system 100 processes a user request to select a webapplication builder component from the selectable list to be implementedin the one or more development areas. In some implementations, webapplication builder components within the selectable list can be draggedand dropped from the list into the development area. In someimplementations, one or more other user inputs may be used to select orplace a web application component.

At block 240, system 100 presents the selected web application buildercomponents within the one or more development areas. In someimplementations, presenting the components in the development areasconsists of presenting a graphical representation representing the webapplication components within a region of the development areas that theuser selected for placement. In some implementations, the graphicalrepresentation of a web application builder component is based on theobject type or component type of web application builder component.

At block 250, system 100 displays a web application builder. In someimplementations, system 100 implements the selected web applicationbuilder components within the one or more development areas of the webapplication builder. In some implementations, the development areas havebeen rendered into the user interface environment of the web applicationbuilder, or “canvas”, where a user of the builder can interact with webapplication components, place components in various positions on a page,and otherwise use all of the potential interface elements of a webapplication builder. In some implementations, the web applicationbuilder is configured to be executable on one or more browsers or otherweb navigation applications operating on one or more client devices.

In some implementations, system 100 processes a second user request tomodify the selected web application builder components within the one ormore development areas. In some implementations, the request to modifyinvolves a modification of one or more properties or attributes of theweb application builder components. In some implementations, system 100updates the selected web application builder components within the oneor more development areas. In some implementations, system 100 alsoupdates the component database 116 to reflect the modifications to theweb application builder components. In some implementations, the requestto modify is a request to add or remove one or more web applicationbuilder components. In some implementations, system 100 may accordinglyadd or remove the web application builder components from thedevelopmental areas, and/or add or remove the components from thecomponent database 116.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a web application builder constructed with aweb application builder framework, in accordance with someimplementations. Example screenshot 300 shows a web application builderwith a title 310, toolbar 320, palette 330, canvas 340, and properties350. In some implementations, the web application builder is presentedto a user as a user interface that can be interacted with to constructweb applications.

The title 310 shows the name of the web application builder, LightningApp Builder. It also shows the name of the web application being built,in this case, Page5. The toolbar 320 is a toolbar presented to the userthat can be used to navigate menus and menu options for constructing webapplications. In some implementations, the toolbar can be configured bythe user of the web application builder.

The palette 330 is a selectable list of one or more web applicationcomponents that can be used and reused to construct web applications.For example, one of the web application components is “Rich Text”, whichplaces a rich text field within the web application. In someimplementations, the web application components can be presented as, oralongside, graphical representations indicating an object type orcomponent type of the web application component. In someimplementations, the web application components may be standardcomponents, provided by default to users, or custom components that werecreated by or specifically for the user of the web application builderfor use in building web applications.

The canvas 340 is an area where a user of the web application buildercan design and lay out web applications or pages in a visual way. Insome implementations, the user can drag one or more selectablecomponents from the palette 330 into the canvas 340 to place them on thecanvas. In some implementations, indications appear in areas of thecanvas 340 where components may be placed, such as a border with text“Add Component(s) Here”.

The properties 350 is an area of the web application builder where usersmay view and modify one or more properties or attributes of a webapplication component or an object, either in the canvas 340, palette330, or some other area of the web application builder. In someimplementations, fields such as “Label”, “Descriptive Name”, “PageType”, and more may designate the corresponding property or attribute,and one or more text fields of drop-down boxes may allow a user tomodify attributes or properties. Various interactive elements, includingbuttons, may also appear to allow the user to view and/or modifyproperties of various aspects of web application components and objects.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a web application builder framework, inaccordance with some implementations. An example screenshot shows abuilder component palette 410, a development area or builder template420, and component properties or property editor 430. In someimplementations, the web application builder framework is presented to auser as a user interface that can be interacted with to construct webapplication builders.

The builder component palette 410 is a selectable list of one or moreweb application builder components. In the example screenshot, webapplication builder components include Component Palette, PropertyEditor, and Toolbars. For example, a Component Palette can be selectedfrom the builder component palette 410 and dragged into the developmentarea 420. The result would be the creation of a web application builderwith a palette, equivalent to the palette 330 in the web applicationbuilder of FIG. 3. In some implementations, graphical representationsmay replace or exist alongside the names of the web application buildercomponents.

The development area or builder template 420 is the work area where auser can visually construct a web application builder. In someimplementations, one or more existing templates may be used to constructa web application builder. For example, a user may want to start with atemplate for a Community Builder, then modify that template to his orher needs. In this example, the user is in the process of configuring aProperty Editor web application builder component for a specific use.

Component properties or property editor 430 is an editor forconfigurable menus of properties or attributes of web applicationbuilder components. In some implementations, users of the webapplication builder framework can create configurable fields forproperties of web application components in a web application builder.Then, when users of the web application builder construct anapplication, they can configure properties or attributes of webapplication components according to how the property editor has allowedthe user to configure them.

FIG. 5 shows an example layout of web application builder components ina web application builder framework, in accordance with someimplementations. A client-side model 510 is shown with builder componentpalette 530, development area 540, and property editor 550. Aserver-side model 520 is shown with a palette connector 560, componenttree connector 570, and property editor connector 580.

The client-side model 510 illustrates the elements of the webapplication builder framework on a client device as presented to a user.The user of the web application framework has a builder componentpalette 530 to select from a selectable list of web application buildercomponents. The user also has a development area or canvas 540 toconstruct a web application builder visually. A web application buildercomponent named “component1” is placed within the canvas 540, forexample. A property editor 550 allows properties of various webapplication builder components to be edited.

The server-side model 520 uses a connector framework to allow theclient-side model elements and components to communicate with theserver. In some implementations, the connector framework provides acommon generic interface layer for users to plug in serialization modelsfor web application builders they wish to construct. For example, an AppBuilder may serialize to and from certain page components. In someimplementations, the connector framework provides functionality forusers to specify which component and services are to be used for theirbuilder project. System 100 looks up the components/services on theserver side, and system 100 then fetches the data, refreshes the data,and otherwise handles the data in an organized and serialized way.Palette connector 560, component tree connector 570, and property editorconnector 580 are examples of components and services that use theconnector framework to communicate and send data to and from the clientdevice and server.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 600 for providing abase editor component in a web application builder framework, performedin accordance with some implementations.

At block 610, system 100 maintains a multi-tenant database 112identifying web application builder components. In some implementations,the multi-tenant database 112 is shared by multiple enterprises. In someimplementations, the multiple enterprises are each users of the system100 and may be able to store and process data in the form of records.The records may be part of a shared table of the multi-tenant database112. In some implementations, the web application builder components areconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder framework,and are further configured to construct a plurality of web applicationcomponents based on user input. In some implementations, one or morepieces of metadata may be stored in the multi-tenant database 112 inrelation to the web application builder components. In someimplementations, a metadata model may be stored for one or more of theweb application builder components.

At block 620, system 100 processes a user request to add to or modifyone or more of the attributes of a web application builder component. Insome implementations, the attributes of a web application buildercomponent may include, for example, a label, descriptive name, size andboundary, visibility, permissions, and more. In some implementations,adding to the attributes of a web application builder component mayinvolve adding one or more additional attributes to a web applicationbuilder component. In some implementations, the web application buildercomponent is a page component for a web application builder page. Insome implementations, the attributes of the web application buildercomponent correspond to one or more regions or development areas of theweb application builder page.

At block 630, system 100 retrieves a metadata model associated with theweb application builder component. In some implementations, the metadatamodel contains one or more nodes corresponding to the attributes of theweb application builder component. In some implementations, the metadatamodel may represent one of a number of data structures for representingthe metadata for a given web application builder component. In someimplementations, the metadata model is a client-side model retrievedfrom one or more client devices. In some implementations, system 100displays a user interface on a client device, allowing a user tointeract with a number of user interface elements associated withviewing and modifying the metadata model.

At block 640, system 100 modifies the metadata model associated with theweb application builder component by adding to or editing one or morenodes of the metadata model based on the first user request. In someimplementations, the nodes may represent properties or attributes of theweb application builder components, and are capable of being configured,modified, added to, or removed for any given component. In someimplementations, the nodes are added to or edited locally on one or moreclient devices.

At block 650, system 100 stores the modified metadata model in one ormore server databases. In some implementations, the server databases maybe multi-tenant database 112 or component database 116. In someimplementations, the modified metadata model is cached locally inaddition to being stored on the server. In some implementations, system100 retrieves the web application builder component from the database ata later time, for local access on one or more client devices. In someimplementations, system 100 displays a web application builder frameworkimplementing the web application builder component with the modifiedmetadata model.

FIG. 7 shows an example layout of a base editor with configurablecomponents in a web application builder, in accordance with someimplementations. The example screenshot shows various elements of a webapplication builder page, showing how different web application buildercomponents can be added to (i.e., extended) or edited to configuregeneric builder components to suit the needs of particular builders.

Header 710 shows a builder name and a project name. In someimplementations, the header 710 is configurable. In someimplementations, the header can contain, or be configured by a user tocontain, elements such as a back button or a help menu item. Toolbar 720shows toolbar elements for the web application builder, including adesktop view, a “Shrink to View” option in a drop-down menu, and arefresh button. In some implementations, the toolbar 720 can beconfigurable to add elements to the toolbar such as a form factorswitcher, activation button, a save button, a zoom button for the canvasor development area, and more.

Left region 730 of the web application builder can be configured suchthat a palette can be implemented, such as in the example screenshot. Insome implementations, the components listed within the selectable listof web application components can be configured by the user. In someimplementations, the left region 730 can automatically reconfigure thelist of components if one or more components do not exist or cannot beretrieved from the client, local cache, or server. In someimplementations, middle region 740 and right region 750 offer similarlyconfigurable aspects. In some implementations, bindings can beconfigured by the user such that different events within the builderautomatically and dynamically affect the attributes or properties of webapplication builder components. For example, a user may configure whatshould happen within the builder when an addComponent event istriggered. Another example may be that the user can reconfigure whathappens when a user of the application builder moves a component fromthe palette into the canvas or development area.

FIG. 8 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 800 for providing aproperty editor component in a web application builder framework,performed in accordance with some implementations.

At block 810, system 100 maintains a multi-tenant database 112identifying web application builder components. In some implementations,the multi-tenant database 112 is shared by multiple enterprises. In someimplementations, the multiple enterprises are each users of the system100 and may be able to store and process data in the form of records.The records may be part of a shared table of the multi-tenant database112. In some implementations, the web application builder components areconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder framework,and are further configured to construct a plurality of web applicationcomponents based on user input. In some implementations, one or morepieces of metadata may be stored in the multi-tenant database 112 inrelation to the web application builder components. In someimplementations, a metadata model may be stored for one or more of theweb application builder components.

In some implementations, system 100 displays a user interface on aclient device that allows a user to request the generation of a propertyeditor component. In some implementations, the user interface elementcan include a number of interactive elements. In some implementations,the user interface element is visual in nature and intended fornon-developers or admins to easily generate property editor componentsaccording to their specifications.

At block 820, system 100 processes a user request to generate a propertyeditor component within the web application builder framework. In someimplementations, the user request includes one or more user-definedproperty fields, each associated with a text label and configured toaccept input. In some implementations, a property editor component is acomponent that allows a user of a web application builder framework toconstruct application builders in which users can edit the properties ofapplication components. In some implementations, a property field may beuser-defined and configurable in various ways, as well as reusable indifferent applications. In some implementations, property fields areassociated with specific web application components or web applicationbuilder components. In some implementations, property fields areconfigured to accept input on a client device using input interfaceelements, such as a text field.

In some implementations, at least one of the property fields isassociated with a drop-down input box that may or may not beuser-defined. In some implementations, system 100 determines one or moredrop-down input box options associated with at least one of theattributes of the web application builder components, with the drop-downinput box containing the one or more drop-down input box options.

At block 830, system 100 generates a property editor component based onthe one or more property fields. For example, a user request to generateproperty editor may include 5 property fields, each with a user inputaccepted to configure or redefine the property field. At block 840,system 100 displays the web application builder on a client device,implementing the property editor component according to thespecifications of the user of the web application builder framework. Insome implementations, the property editor component contains one or morepre-defined property fields, one or more user-defined property fields,or some combination of both.

In some implementations, system 100 displays a web application builderfor constructing web applications within one or more client devices,with an implementation of one or more property sheets based on theproperty editor component. In some implementations, property sheets maybe configurable or non-configurable. In some implementations, the one ormore property sheets represent the one or more property fields.

FIG. 9 shows an example of a property editor constructed with a webapplication builder framework, in accordance with some implementations.In the example screenshot, a web application builder is displayed in auser interface on a client device. A property editor 910 has beengenerated through a web application builder framework, pertaining to aHeadline web application component. The property editor 910 includes thefields Title, Banner Text, Page Type, Unique Name or ID, Banner Textwith Articles and Discussions, and Banner Text with Discussions, allrelating to attributes or properties of the Headline web applicationcomponent. Each of these fields includes an element to accept userinput. For example, the Title field includes a text field that acceptsuser input, such as “Welcome!” A checkbox for Show Subtopics is alsoincluded. The canvas 920 has web application components incorporatedinto a design in progress for a web application. The headline visuallyimplemented in the canvas 920 is modified during run-time based on thevalues of the properties in the property editor 910. For example, if“Welcome!” was changed to another headline title, then the canvas 920would reflect this instantaneously or near-instantaneously during thedesign period in real time.

FIG. 10 shows a flowchart of an example of a method 1000 for providingan interactions layer in a web application builder framework, performedin accordance with some implementations.

At block 1010, system 100 maintains a multi-tenant database 112identifying web application builder components. In some implementations,the multi-tenant database 112 is shared by multiple enterprises. In someimplementations, the multiple enterprises are each users of the system100 and may be able to store and process data in the form of records.The records may be part of a shared table of the multi-tenant database112. In some implementations, the web application builder components areconfigured to be reusable within a web application builder framework,and are further configured to construct a plurality of web applicationcomponents based on user input. In some implementations, one or morepieces of metadata may be stored in the multi-tenant database 112 inrelation to the web application builder components. In someimplementations, a metadata model may be stored for one or more of theweb application builder components.

At block 1020, system 100 displays a user interface for the webapplication builder framework. In some implementations, the userinterface includes a selectable list of a subset of the web applicationbuilder components. In some implementations, the user interface includesone or more “development areas”. Development areas represent a workingarea for the developers or admins constructing a web applicationbuilder. In some implementations, a development area allows for theplacement of page or web application design elements, including theplacement of web application builder components. In someimplementations, the selectable list of web application buildercomponents may be a palette editor. A palette editor shows all of theavailable web application builder components in a palette, toolbar,list, or other form of displaying the components.

At block 1030, system 100 processes a user input corresponding to one ofthe web application components, including a form of selecting the webapplication builder component. In some implementations, web applicationbuilder components can be dragged and dropped from the list into thedevelopment area. In some implementations, one or more other user inputsmay be used to select or place a web application builder component. Insome implementations, any part of a graphical representation of acomponent may be clicked on, swiped, pinched, or otherwise gestured inrelation to in order to be selected in some way. In someimplementations, hovering, dragging, dropping, pointing to, clicking on,or gesturing all represent forms of selecting the web applicationbuilder component.

At block 1040, system 100 prevents one or more component behaviors ofthe web application builder component. In some implementations,component behaviors are specified within one or more attributes orproperties of web application builder components. For example, within anexternal repository web application builder component, clicking on afile directory may open that file directory. In a text field component,clicking on the text field may prompt the user to enter text. In someimplementations, the component behaviors are retrieved from a metadatamodel corresponding to the web application builder component. In someimplementations, the component behaviors are functions that relate toone or more selectable areas within the web application component.

At block 1050, system 100 determines one or more builder componentbehaviors for the web application builder component based on the form ofselecting the web application builder component. In someimplementations, builder component behaviors may be specified by one ormore users by editing or adding to properties or attributes of thecorresponding web application builder component. In someimplementations, builder component behaviors represent behaviors thatoverride the existing component behaviors for when a user clicks orotherwise selects the component. Builder component behaviors aredesigned to allow a user to treat a component as a development item thatcan, for example, be dragged around a canvas in an object container,selected along with other components, or batch edited. Rather than afile directory being clicked on and having the file structure beingnavigated, a developer would prefer to have a click represent thatobject being selected for design and layout purposes within the webapplication builder framework. In some implementations, the buildercomponent behaviors are retrieved from a metadata model corresponding tothe web application builder component. In some implementations, thebuilder component behaviors are functions relating to selecting arepresentation of the web application builder component, with therepresentation standing for a defined object inside the one or moredevelopment areas. In some implementations, the builder componentbehaviors can be defined or customized by a user of either the webapplication builder framework or the web application builder. In someimplementations, the builder component behaviors present a detailed viewof the web application builder component within the user interface.

At block 1060, system 100 presents the web application builder componentin the user interface, according to a form corresponding to the buildercomponents. For example, if a builder component behavior specifies thatclicking on an external repository component will merely select it inthe canvas, then system 100 will present the component in precisely thatform within the user interface. Thus, user interactions during thebuilder framework design experience can say consistent regardless of thecomponent and its particular behaviors upon being interacted with.

Systems, apparatus, and methods are described below for implementingdatabase systems and enterprise level social and business informationnetworking systems in conjunction with the disclosed techniques. Suchimplementations can provide more efficient use of a database system. Forinstance, a user of a database system may not easily know when importantinformation in the database has changed, e.g., about a project orclient. Such implementations can provide feed tracked updates about suchchanges and other events, thereby keeping users informed.

By way of example, a user can update a record in the form of a CRMrecord, e.g., an opportunity such as a possible sale of 1000 computers.Once the record update has been made, a feed tracked update about therecord update can then automatically be provided, e.g., in a feed, toanyone subscribing to the opportunity or to the user. Thus, the userdoes not need to contact a manager regarding the change in theopportunity, since the feed tracked update about the update is sent viaa feed to the manager's feed page or other page.

FIG. 11A shows a block diagram of an example of an environment 10 inwhich an on-demand database service exists and can be used in accordancewith some implementations. Environment 10 may include user systems 12,network 14, database system 16, processor system 17, applicationplatform 18, network interface 20, tenant data storage 22, system datastorage 24, program code 26, and process space 28. In otherimplementations, environment 10 may not have all of these componentsand/or may have other components instead of, or in addition to, thoselisted above.

A user system 12 may be implemented as any computing device(s) or otherdata processing apparatus such as a machine or system used by a user toaccess a database system 16. For example, any of user systems 12 can bea handheld and/or portable computing device such as a mobile phone, asmartphone, a laptop computer, or a tablet. Other examples of a usersystem include computing devices such as a work station and/or a networkof computing devices. As illustrated in FIG. 11A (and in more detail inFIG. 11B) user systems 12 might interact via a network 14 with anon-demand database service, which is implemented in the example of FIG.11A as database system 16.

An on-demand database service, implemented using system 16 by way ofexample, is a service that is made available to users who do not need tonecessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the databasesystem. Instead, the database system may be available for their use whenthe users need the database system, i.e., on the demand of the users.Some on-demand database services may store information from one or moretenants into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenantdatabase system (MTS). A database image may include one or more databaseobjects. A relational database management system (RDBMS) or theequivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against thedatabase object(s). A non-relational database management system (NRDBMS)or the equivalent may execute storage and fast retrieval of large setsof information against the database object(s). Application platform 18may be a framework that allows the applications of system 16 to run,such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. Insome implementations, application platform 18 enables creation, managingand executing one or more applications developed by the provider of theon-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand databaseservice via user systems 12, or third party application developersaccessing the on-demand database service via user systems 12.

The users of user systems 12 may differ in their respective capacities,and the capacity of a particular user system 12 might be entirelydetermined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. Forexample, when a salesperson is using a particular user system 12 tointeract with system 16, the user system has the capacities allotted tothat salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that usersystem to interact with system 16, that user system has the capacitiesallotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical rolemodel, users at one permission level may have access to applications,data, and database information accessible by a lower permission leveluser, but may not have access to certain applications, databaseinformation, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level.Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard toaccessing and modifying application and database information, dependingon a user's security or permission level, also called authorization.

Network 14 is any network or combination of networks of devices thatcommunicate with one another. For example, network 14 can be any one orany combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network),telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, starnetwork, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriateconfiguration. Network 14 can include a TCP/IP (Transfer ControlProtocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetworkof networks often referred to as the Internet. The Internet will be usedin many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood thatthe networks that the present implementations might use are not solimited.

User systems 12 might communicate with system 16 using TCP/IP and, at ahigher network level, use other common Internet protocols tocommunicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTPis used, user system 12 might include an HTTP client commonly referredto as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP signals to and from anHTTP server at system 16. Such an HTTP server might be implemented asthe sole network interface 20 between system 16 and network 14, butother techniques might be used as well or instead. In someimplementations, the network interface 20 between system 16 and network14 includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP requestdistributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requestsevenly over a plurality of servers. At least for users accessing system16, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS' data;however, other alternative configurations may be used instead.

In one implementation, system 16, shown in FIG. 11A, implements aweb-based CRM system. For example, in one implementation, system 16includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRMsoftware applications as well as provide related data, code, forms, webpages and other information to and from user systems 12 and to store to,and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpagecontent. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may bestored in the same physical database object in tenant data storage 22,however, tenant data typically is arranged in the storage medium(s) oftenant data storage 22 so that data of one tenant is kept logicallyseparate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not haveaccess to another tenant's data, unless such data is expressly shared.In certain implementations, system 16 implements applications otherthan, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system 16 mayprovide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom)applications, including a CRM application. User (or third partydeveloper) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may besupported by the application platform 18, which manages creation,storage of the applications into one or more database objects andexecuting of the applications in a virtual machine in the process spaceof the system 16.

One arrangement for elements of system 16 is shown in FIGS. 11A and 11B,including a network interface 20, application platform 18, tenant datastorage 22 for tenant data 23, system data storage 24 for system data 25accessible to system 16 and possibly multiple tenants, program code 26for implementing various functions of system 16, and a process space 28for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, suchas running applications as part of an application hosting service.Additional processes that may execute on system 16 include databaseindexing processes.

Several elements in the system shown in FIG. 11A include conventional,well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example,each user system 12 could include a desktop personal computer,workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol(WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable ofinterfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other networkconnection. The term “computing device” is also referred to hereinsimply as a “computer”. User system 12 typically runs an HTTP client,e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser,Netscape's Navigator browser, Opera's browser, or a WAP-enabled browserin the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like,allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system)of user system 12 to access, process and view information, pages andapplications available to it from system 16 over network 14. Each usersystem 12 also typically includes one or more user input devices, suchas a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or thelike, for interacting with a GUI provided by the browser on a display(e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, OLED display, etc.) of thecomputing device in conjunction with pages, forms, applications andother information provided by system 16 or other systems or servers.Thus, “display device” as used herein can refer to a display of acomputer system such as a monitor or touch-screen display, and can referto any computing device having display capabilities such as a desktopcomputer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, a television set-top box, orwearable device such Google Glass® or other human body-mounted displayapparatus. For example, the display device can be used to access dataand applications hosted by system 16, and to perform searches on storeddata, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages thatmay be presented to a user. As discussed above, implementations aresuitable for use with the Internet, although other networks can be usedinstead of or in addition to the Internet, such as an intranet, anextranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network,any LAN or WAN or the like.

According to one implementation, each user system 12 and all of itscomponents are operator configurable using applications, such as abrowser, including computer code run using a central processing unitsuch as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system 16(and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) andall of its components might be operator configurable usingapplication(s) including computer code to run using processor system 17,which may be implemented to include a central processing unit, which mayinclude an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multipleprocessor units. Non-transitory computer-readable media can haveinstructions stored thereon/in, that can be executed by or used toprogram a computing device to perform any of the methods of theimplementations described herein. Computer program code 26 implementinginstructions for operating and configuring system 16 to intercommunicateand to process web pages, applications and other data and media contentas described herein is preferably downloadable and stored on a harddisk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also bestored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device asis well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable ofstoring program code, such as any type of rotating media includingfloppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk(CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or opticalcards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any other typeof computer-readable medium or device suitable for storing instructionsand/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof,may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over atransmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, asis well known, or transmitted over any other conventional networkconnection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using anycommunication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet,etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer codefor the disclosed implementations can be realized in any programminglanguage that can be executed on a client system and/or server or serversystem such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language,Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such asVBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may beused. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.).

According to some implementations, each system 16 is configured toprovide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user(client) systems 12 to support the access by user systems 12 as tenantsof system 16. As such, system 16 provides security mechanisms to keepeach tenant's data separate unless the data is shared. If more than oneMTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another(e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or theymay be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one ormore servers located in city A and one or more servers located in cityB). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/orphysically connected servers distributed locally or across one or moregeographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to referto one type of computing device such as a system including processinghardware and process space(s), an associated storage medium such as amemory device or database, and, in some instances, a databaseapplication (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. Itshould also be understood that “server system” and “server” are oftenused interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database objects describedherein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, acollection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online oroffline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include adistributed database or storage network and associated processingintelligence.

FIG. 11B shows a block diagram of an example of some implementations ofelements of FIG. 11A and various possible interconnections between theseelements. That is, FIG. 11B also illustrates environment 10. However, inFIG. 11B elements of system 16 and various interconnections in someimplementations are further illustrated. FIG. 11B shows that user system12 may include processor system 12A, memory system 12B, input system12C, and output system 12D. FIG. 11B shows network 14 and system 16.FIG. 11B also shows that system 16 may include tenant data storage 22,tenant data 23, system data storage 24, system data 25, User Interface(UI) 30, Application Program Interface (API) 32, PL/SOQL 34, saveroutines 36, application setup mechanism 38, application servers 50 ₁-50_(N), system process space 52, tenant process spaces 54, tenantmanagement process space 60, tenant storage space 62, user storage 64,and application metadata 66. In other implementations, environment 10may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may haveother elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above.

User system 12, network 14, system 16, tenant data storage 22, andsystem data storage 24 were discussed above in FIG. 11A. Regarding usersystem 12, processor system 12A may be any combination of one or moreprocessors. Memory system 12B may be any combination of one or morememory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system 12Cmay be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards,mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks.Output system 12D may be any combination of output devices, such as oneor more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown byFIG. 11B, system 16 may include a network interface 20 (of FIG. 11A)implemented as a set of application servers 50, an application platform18, tenant data storage 22, and system data storage 24. Also shown issystem process space 52, including individual tenant process spaces 54and a tenant management process space 60. Each application server 50 maybe configured to communicate with tenant data storage 22 and the tenantdata 23 therein, and system data storage 24 and the system data 25therein to serve requests of user systems 12. The tenant data 23 mightbe divided into individual tenant storage spaces 62, which can be eithera physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within eachtenant storage space 62, user storage 64 and application metadata 66might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of auser's most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage64. Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is atenant might be stored to tenant storage space 62. A UI 30 provides auser interface and an API 32 provides an application programmerinterface to system 16 resident processes to users and/or developers atuser systems 12. The tenant data and the system data may be stored invarious databases, such as one or more Oracle® databases.

Application platform 18 includes an application setup mechanism 38 thatsupports application developers' creation and management ofapplications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage 22by save routines 36 for execution by subscribers as one or more tenantprocess spaces 54 managed by tenant management process 60 for example.Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL 34 thatprovides a programming language style interface extension to API 32. Adetailed description of some PL/SOQL language implementations isdiscussed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 7,730,478, titled METHODAND SYSTEM FOR ALLOWING ACCESS TO DEVELOPED APPLICATIONS VIA AMULTI-TENANT ON-DEMAND DATABASE SERVICE, by Craig Weissman, issued onJun. 1, 2010, and hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety andfor all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one ormore system processes, which manage retrieving application metadata 66for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata asan application in a virtual machine.

Each application server 50 may be communicably coupled to databasesystems, e.g., having access to system data 25 and tenant data 23, via adifferent network connection. For example, one application server 50 ₁might be coupled via the network 14 (e.g., the Internet), anotherapplication server 50 _(N-1) might be coupled via a direct network link,and another application server 50 _(N) might be coupled by yet adifferent network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and InternetProtocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating betweenapplication servers 50 and the database system. However, it will beapparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may beused to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used.

In certain implementations, each application server 50 is configured tohandle requests for any user associated with any organization that is atenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove applicationservers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there ispreferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to aspecific application server 50. In one implementation, therefore, aninterface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the applicationservers 50 and the user systems 12 to distribute requests to theapplication servers 50. In one implementation, the load balancer uses aleast connections algorithm to route user requests to the applicationservers 50. Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as roundrobin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, incertain implementations, three consecutive requests from the same usercould hit three different application servers 50, and three requestsfrom different users could hit the same application server 50. In thismanner, by way of example, system 16 is multi-tenant, wherein system 16handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data andapplications across disparate users and organizations.

As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs asales force where each salesperson uses system 16 to manage their salesprocess. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customerfollow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., allapplicable to that user's personal sales process (e.g., in tenant datastorage 22). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the dataand the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit,calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system havingnothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her salesefforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example,if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internetaccess in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as tothat customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby.

While each user's data might be separate from other users' dataregardless of the employers of each user, some data might beorganization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users orall of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, theremight be some data structures managed by system 16 that are allocated atthe tenant level while other data structures might be managed at theuser level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants includingpossible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keepdata, applications, and application use separate. Also, because manytenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their ownsystem, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions thatmay be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data andtenant-specific data, system 16 might also maintain system level datausable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data mightinclude industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharableamong tenants.

In certain implementations, user systems 12 (which may be clientsystems) communicate with application servers 50 to request and updatesystem-level and tenant-level data from system 16 that may involvesending one or more queries to tenant data storage 22 and/or system datastorage 24. System 16 (e.g., an application server 50 in system 16)automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or moreSQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. Systemdata storage 24 may generate query plans to access the requested datafrom the database.

Each database can generally be viewed as a collection of objects, suchas a set of logical tables, containing data fitted into predefinedcategories. A “table” is one representation of a data object, and may beused herein to simplify the conceptual description of objects and customobjects according to some implementations. It should be understood that“table” and “object” may be used interchangeably herein. Each tablegenerally contains one or more data categories logically arranged ascolumns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a tablecontains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields.For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes acustomer with fields for basic contact information such as name,address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe apurchase order, including fields for information such as customer,product, sale price, date, etc. In some multi-tenant database systems,standard entity tables might be provided for use by all tenants. For CRMdatabase applications, such standard entities might include tables forcase, account, contact, lead, and opportunity data objects, eachcontaining pre-defined fields. It should be understood that the word“entity” may also be used interchangeably herein with “object” and“table”.

In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to createand store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standardentities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standardobjects, including custom index fields. Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No.7,779,039, titled CUSTOM ENTITIES AND FIELDS IN A MULTI-TENANT DATABASESYSTEM, by Weissman et al., issued on Aug. 17, 2010, and herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety and for all purposes, teachessystems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizingstandard objects in a multi-tenant database system. In certainimplementations, for example, all custom entity data rows are stored ina single multi-tenant physical table, which may contain multiple logicaltables per organization. It is transparent to customers that theirmultiple “tables” are in fact stored in one large table or that theirdata may be stored in the same table as the data of other customers.

FIG. 12A shows a system diagram of an example of architecturalcomponents of an on-demand database service environment 900, inaccordance with some implementations. A client machine located in thecloud 904, generally referring to one or more networks in combination,as described herein, may communicate with the on-demand database serviceenvironment via one or more edge routers 908 and 912. A client machinecan be any of the examples of user systems 12 described above. The edgerouters may communicate with one or more core switches 920 and 924 viafirewall 916. The core switches may communicate with a load balancer928, which may distribute server load over different pods, such as thepods 940 and 944. The pods 940 and 944, which may each include one ormore servers and/or other computing resources, may perform dataprocessing and other operations used to provide on-demand services.Communication with the pods may be conducted via pod switches 932 and936. Components of the on-demand database service environment maycommunicate with a database storage 956 via a database firewall 948 anda database switch 952.

As shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B, accessing an on-demand database serviceenvironment may involve communications transmitted among a variety ofdifferent hardware and/or software components. Further, the on-demanddatabase service environment 900 is a simplified representation of anactual on-demand database service environment. For example, while onlyone or two devices of each type are shown in FIGS. 12A and 12B, someimplementations of an on-demand database service environment may includeanywhere from one to many devices of each type. Also, the on-demanddatabase service environment need not include each device shown in FIGS.12A and 12B, or may include additional devices not shown in FIGS. 12Aand 12B.

Moreover, one or more of the devices in the on-demand database serviceenvironment 900 may be implemented on the same physical device or ondifferent hardware. Some devices may be implemented using hardware or acombination of hardware and software. Thus, terms such as “dataprocessing apparatus,” “machine,” “server” and “device” as used hereinare not limited to a single hardware device, but rather include anyhardware and software configured to provide the described functionality.

The cloud 904 is intended to refer to a data network or combination ofdata networks, often including the Internet. Client machines located inthe cloud 904 may communicate with the on-demand database serviceenvironment to access services provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. For example, client machines may access theon-demand database service environment to retrieve, store, edit, and/orprocess information.

In some implementations, the edge routers 908 and 912 route packetsbetween the cloud 904 and other components of the on-demand databaseservice environment 900. The edge routers 908 and 912 may employ theBorder Gateway Protocol (BGP). The BGP is the core routing protocol ofthe Internet. The edge routers 908 and 912 may maintain a table of IPnetworks or ‘prefixes’, which designate network reachability amongautonomous systems on the Internet.

In one or more implementations, the firewall 916 may protect the innercomponents of the on-demand database service environment 900 fromInternet traffic. The firewall 916 may block, permit, or deny access tothe inner components of the on-demand database service environment 900based upon a set of rules and other criteria. The firewall 916 may actas one or more of a packet filter, an application gateway, a statefulfilter, a proxy server, or any other type of firewall.

In some implementations, the core switches 920 and 924 are high-capacityswitches that transfer packets within the on-demand database serviceenvironment 900. The core switches 920 and 924 may be configured asnetwork bridges that quickly route data between different componentswithin the on-demand database service environment. In someimplementations, the use of two or more core switches 920 and 924 mayprovide redundancy and/or reduced latency.

In some implementations, the pods 940 and 944 may perform the core dataprocessing and service functions provided by the on-demand databaseservice environment. Each pod may include various types of hardwareand/or software computing resources. An example of the pod architectureis discussed in greater detail with reference to FIG. 12B.

In some implementations, communication between the pods 940 and 944 maybe conducted via the pod switches 932 and 936. The pod switches 932 and936 may facilitate communication between the pods 940 and 944 and clientmachines located in the cloud 904, for example via core switches 920 and924. Also, the pod switches 932 and 936 may facilitate communicationbetween the pods 940 and 944 and the database storage 956.

In some implementations, the load balancer 928 may distribute workloadbetween the pods 940 and 944. Balancing the on-demand service requestsbetween the pods may assist in improving the use of resources,increasing throughput, reducing response times, and/or reducingoverhead. The load balancer 928 may include multilayer switches toanalyze and forward traffic.

In some implementations, access to the database storage 956 may beguarded by a database firewall 948. The database firewall 948 may act asa computer application firewall operating at the database applicationlayer of a protocol stack. The database firewall 948 may protect thedatabase storage 956 from application attacks such as structure querylanguage (SQL) injection, database rootkits, and unauthorizedinformation disclosure.

In some implementations, the database firewall 948 may include a hostusing one or more forms of reverse proxy services to proxy trafficbefore passing it to a gateway router. The database firewall 948 mayinspect the contents of database traffic and block certain content ordatabase requests. The database firewall 948 may work on the SQLapplication level atop the TCP/IP stack, managing applications'connection to the database or SQL management interfaces as well asintercepting and enforcing packets traveling to or from a databasenetwork or application interface.

In some implementations, communication with the database storage 956 maybe conducted via the database switch 952. The multi-tenant databasestorage 956 may include more than one hardware and/or softwarecomponents for handling database queries. Accordingly, the databaseswitch 952 may direct database queries transmitted by other componentsof the on-demand database service environment (e.g., the pods 940 and944) to the correct components within the database storage 956.

In some implementations, the database storage 956 is an on-demanddatabase system shared by many different organizations. The on-demanddatabase service may employ a multi-tenant approach, a virtualizedapproach, or any other type of database approach. On-demand databaseservices are discussed in greater detail with reference to FIGS. 12A and12B.

FIG. 12B shows a system diagram further illustrating an example ofarchitectural components of an on-demand database service environment,in accordance with some implementations. The pod 944 may be used torender services to a user of the on-demand database service environment900. In some implementations, each pod may include a variety of serversand/or other systems. The pod 944 includes one or more content batchservers 964, content search servers 968, query servers 982, file servers986, access control system (ACS) servers 980, batch servers 984, and appservers 988. Also, the pod 944 includes database instances 990, quickfile systems (QFS) 992, and indexers 994. In one or moreimplementations, some or all communication between the servers in thepod 944 may be transmitted via the switch 936.

The content batch servers 964 may handle requests internal to the pod.These requests may be long-running and/or not tied to a particularcustomer. For example, the content batch servers 964 may handle requestsrelated to log mining, cleanup work, and maintenance tasks.

The content search servers 968 may provide query and indexer functions.For example, the functions provided by the content search servers 968may allow users to search through content stored in the on-demanddatabase service environment.

The file servers 986 may manage requests for information stored in thefile storage 998. The file storage 998 may store information such asdocuments, images, and basic large objects (BLOBs). By managing requestsfor information using the file servers 986, the image footprint on thedatabase may be reduced.

The query servers 982 may be used to retrieve information from one ormore file systems. For example, the query system 982 may receiverequests for information from the app servers 988 and then transmitinformation queries to the NFS 996 located outside the pod.

The pod 944 may share a database instance 990 configured as amulti-tenant environment in which different organizations share accessto the same database. Additionally, services rendered by the pod 944 maycall upon various hardware and/or software resources. In someimplementations, the ACS servers 980 may control access to data,hardware resources, or software resources.

In some implementations, the batch servers 984 may process batch jobs,which are used to run tasks at specified times. Thus, the batch servers984 may transmit instructions to other servers, such as the app servers988, to trigger the batch jobs.

In some implementations, the QFS 992 may be an open source file systemavailable from Sun Microsystems® of Santa Clara, Calif. The QFS mayserve as a rapid-access file system for storing and accessinginformation available within the pod 944. The QFS 992 may support somevolume management capabilities, allowing many disks to be groupedtogether into a file system. File system metadata can be kept on aseparate set of disks, which may be useful for streaming applicationswhere long disk seeks cannot be tolerated. Thus, the QFS system maycommunicate with one or more content search servers 968 and/or indexers994 to identify, retrieve, move, and/or update data stored in thenetwork file systems 996 and/or other storage systems.

In some implementations, one or more query servers 982 may communicatewith the NFS 996 to retrieve and/or update information stored outside ofthe pod 944. The NFS 996 may allow servers located in the pod 944 toaccess information to access files over a network in a manner similar tohow local storage is accessed.

In some implementations, queries from the query servers 922 may betransmitted to the NFS 996 via the load balancer 928, which maydistribute resource requests over various resources available in theon-demand database service environment. The NFS 996 may also communicatewith the QFS 992 to update the information stored on the NFS 996 and/orto provide information to the QFS 992 for use by servers located withinthe pod 944.

In some implementations, the pod may include one or more databaseinstances 990. The database instance 990 may transmit information to theQFS 992. When information is transmitted to the QFS, it may be availablefor use by servers within the pod 944 without using an additionaldatabase call.

In some implementations, database information may be transmitted to theindexer 994. Indexer 994 may provide an index of information availablein the database 990 and/or QFS 992. The index information may beprovided to file servers 986 and/or the QFS 992.

Some but not all of the techniques described or referenced herein areimplemented as part of or in conjunction with a social networkingdatabase system, also referred to herein as a social networking systemor as a social network. Social networking systems have become a popularway to facilitate communication among people, any of whom can berecognized as users of a social networking system. One example of asocial networking system is Chatter®, provided by salesforce.com, inc.of San Francisco, Calif. salesforce.com, inc. is a provider of socialnetworking services, CRM services and other database managementservices, any of which can be accessed and used in conjunction with thetechniques disclosed herein in some implementations. These variousservices can be provided in a cloud computing environment, for example,in the context of a multi-tenant database system. Thus, the disclosedtechniques can be implemented without having to install softwarelocally, that is, on computing devices of users interacting withservices available through the cloud. While the disclosedimplementations are often described with reference to Chatter®, thoseskilled in the art should understand that the disclosed techniques areneither limited to Chatter® nor to any other services and systemsprovided by salesforce.com, inc. and can be implemented in the contextof various other database systems and/or social networking systems suchas Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Twitter®, Google+®, Yammer® and Jive® by way ofexample only.

Some social networking systems can be implemented in various settings,including organizations. For instance, a social networking system can beimplemented to connect users within an enterprise such as a company orbusiness partnership, or a group of users within such an organization.For instance, Chatter® can be used by employee users in a division of abusiness organization to share data, communicate, and collaborate witheach other for various social purposes often involving the business ofthe organization. In the example of a multi-tenant database system, eachorganization or group within the organization can be a respective tenantof the system, as described in greater detail herein.

In some social networking systems, users can access one or more socialnetwork feeds, which include information updates presented as items orentries in the feed. Such a feed item can include a single informationupdate or a collection of individual information updates. A feed itemcan include various types of data including character-based data, audiodata, image data and/or video data. A social network feed can bedisplayed in a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display device suchas the display of a computing device as described herein. Theinformation updates can include various social network data from varioussources and can be stored in an on-demand database service environment.In some implementations, the disclosed methods, apparatus, systems, andcomputer-readable storage media may be configured or designed for use ina multi-tenant database environment.

In some implementations, a social networking system may allow a user tofollow data objects in the form of CRM records such as cases, accounts,or opportunities, in addition to following individual users and groupsof users. The “following” of a record stored in a database, as describedin greater detail herein, allows a user to track the progress of thatrecord when the user is subscribed to the record. Updates to the record,also referred to herein as changes to the record, are one type ofinformation update that can occur and be noted on a social network feedsuch as a record feed or a news feed of a user subscribed to the record.Examples of record updates include field changes in the record, updatesto the status of a record, as well as the creation of the record itself.Some records are publicly accessible, such that any user can follow therecord, while other records are private, for which appropriate securityclearance/permissions are a prerequisite to a user following the record.

Information updates can include various types of updates, which may ormay not be linked with a particular record. For example, informationupdates can be social media messages submitted by a user or canotherwise be generated in response to user actions or in response toevents. Examples of social media messages include: posts, comments,indications of a user's personal preferences such as “likes” and“dislikes”, updates to a user's status, uploaded files, anduser-submitted hyperlinks to social network data or other network datasuch as various documents and/or web pages on the Internet. Posts caninclude alpha-numeric or other character-based user inputs such aswords, phrases, statements, questions, emotional expressions, and/orsymbols. Comments generally refer to responses to posts or to otherinformation updates, such as words, phrases, statements, answers,questions, and reactionary emotional expressions and/or symbols.Multimedia data can be included in, linked with, or attached to a postor comment. For example, a post can include textual statements incombination with a JPEG image or animated image. A like or dislike canbe submitted in response to a particular post or comment. Examples ofuploaded files include presentations, documents, multimedia files, andthe like.

Users can follow a record by subscribing to the record, as mentionedabove. Users can also follow other entities such as other types of dataobjects, other users, and groups of users. Feed tracked updatesregarding such entities are one type of information update that can bereceived and included in the user's news feed. Any number of users canfollow a particular entity and thus view information updates pertainingto that entity on the users' respective news feeds. In some socialnetworks, users may follow each other by establishing connections witheach other, sometimes referred to as “friending” one another. Byestablishing such a connection, one user may be able to see informationgenerated by, generated about, or otherwise associated with anotheruser. For instance, a first user may be able to see information postedby a second user to the second user's personal social network page. Oneimplementation of such a personal social network page is a user'sprofile page, for example, in the form of a web page representing theuser's profile. In one example, when the first user is following thesecond user, the first user's news feed can receive a post from thesecond user submitted to the second user's profile feed. A user'sprofile feed is also referred to herein as the user's “wall,” which isone example of a social network feed displayed on the user's profilepage.

In some implementations, a social network feed may be specific to agroup of users of a social networking system. For instance, a group ofusers may publish a news feed. Members of the group may view and post tothis group feed in accordance with a permissions configuration for thefeed and the group. Information updates in a group context can alsoinclude changes to group status information.

In some implementations, when data such as posts or comments input fromone or more users are submitted to a social network feed for aparticular user, group, object, or other construct within a socialnetworking system, an email notification or other type of networkcommunication may be transmitted to all users following the user, group,or object in addition to the inclusion of the data as a feed item in oneor more feeds, such as a user's profile feed, a news feed, or a recordfeed. In some social networking systems, the occurrence of such anotification is limited to the first instance of a published input,which may form part of a larger conversation. For instance, anotification may be transmitted for an initial post, but not forcomments on the post. In some other implementations, a separatenotification is transmitted for each such information update.

The term “multi-tenant database system” generally refers to thosesystems in which various elements of hardware and/or software of adatabase system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, agiven application server may simultaneously process requests for a greatnumber of customers, and a given database table may store rows of datasuch as feed items for a potentially much greater number of customers.

An example of a “user profile” or “user's profile” is a database objector set of objects configured to store and maintain data about a givenuser of a social networking system and/or database system. The data caninclude general information, such as name, title, phone number, a photo,a biographical summary, and a status, e.g., text describing what theuser is currently doing. As mentioned herein, the data can includesocial media messages created by other users. Where there are multipletenants, a user is typically associated with a particular tenant. Forexample, a user could be a salesperson of a company, which is a tenantof the database system that provides a database service.

The term “record” generally refers to a data entity having fields withvalues and stored in database system. An example of a record is aninstance of a data object created by a user of the database service, forexample, in the form of a CRM record about a particular (actual orpotential) business relationship or project. The record can have a datastructure defined by the database service (a standard object) or definedby a user (custom object). For example, a record can be for a businesspartner or potential business partner (e.g., a client, vendor,distributor, etc.) of the user, and can include information describingan entire company, subsidiaries, or contacts at the company. As anotherexample, a record can be a project that the user is working on, such asan opportunity (e.g., a possible sale) with an existing partner, or aproject that the user is trying to get. In one implementation of amulti-tenant database system, each record for the tenants has a uniqueidentifier stored in a common table. A record has data fields that aredefined by the structure of the object (e.g., fields of certain datatypes and purposes). A record can also have custom fields defined by auser. A field can be another record or include links thereto, therebyproviding a parent-child relationship between the records.

The terms “social network feed” and “feed” are used interchangeablyherein and generally refer to a combination (e.g., a list) of feed itemsor entries with various types of information and data. Such feed itemscan be stored and maintained in one or more database tables, e.g., asrows in the table(s), that can be accessed to retrieve relevantinformation to be presented as part of a displayed feed. The term “feeditem” (or feed element) generally refers to an item of information,which can be presented in the feed such as a post submitted by a user.Feed items of information about a user can be presented in a user'sprofile feed of the database, while feed items of information about arecord can be presented in a record feed in the database, by way ofexample. A profile feed and a record feed are examples of differenttypes of social network feeds. A second user following a first user anda record can receive the feed items associated with the first user andthe record for display in the second user's news feed, which is anothertype of social network feed. In some implementations, the feed itemsfrom any number of followed users and records can be combined into asingle social network feed of a particular user.

As examples, a feed item can be a social media message, such as auser-generated post of text data, and a feed tracked update to a recordor profile, such as a change to a field of the record. Feed trackedupdates are described in greater detail herein. A feed can be acombination of social media messages and feed tracked updates. Socialmedia messages include text created by a user, and may include otherdata as well. Examples of social media messages include posts, userstatus updates, and comments. Social media messages can be created for auser's profile or for a record. Posts can be created by various users,potentially any user, although some restrictions can be applied. As anexample, posts can be made to a wall section of a user's profile page(which can include a number of recent posts) or a section of a recordthat includes multiple posts. The posts can be organized inchronological order when displayed in a GUI, for instance, on the user'sprofile page, as part of the user's profile feed. In contrast to a post,a user status update changes a status of a user and can be made by thatuser or an administrator. A record can also have a status, the update ofwhich can be provided by an owner of the record or other users havingsuitable write access permissions to the record. The owner can be asingle user, multiple users, or a group.

In some implementations, a comment can be made on any feed item. In someimplementations, comments are organized as a list explicitly tied to aparticular feed tracked update, post, or status update. In someimplementations, comments may not be listed in the first layer (in ahierarchal sense) of feed items, but listed as a second layer branchingfrom a particular first layer feed item.

A “feed tracked update,” also referred to herein as a “feed update,” isone type of information update and generally refers to data representingan event. A feed tracked update can include text generated by thedatabase system in response to the event, to be provided as one or morefeed items for possible inclusion in one or more feeds. In oneimplementation, the data can initially be stored, and then the databasesystem can later use the data to create text for describing the event.Both the data and/or the text can be a feed tracked update, as usedherein. In various implementations, an event can be an update of arecord and/or can be triggered by a specific action by a user. Whichactions trigger an event can be configurable. Which events have feedtracked updates created and which feed updates are sent to which userscan also be configurable. Social media messages and other types of feedupdates can be stored as a field or child object of the record. Forexample, the feed can be stored as a child object of the record.

A “group” is generally a collection of users. In some implementations,the group may be defined as users with a same or similar attribute, orby membership. In some implementations, a “group feed”, also referred toherein as a “group news feed”, includes one or more feed items about anyuser in the group. In some implementations, the group feed also includesinformation updates and other feed items that are about the group as awhole, the group's purpose, the group's description, and group recordsand other objects stored in association with the group. Threads ofinformation updates including group record updates and social mediamessages, such as posts, comments, likes, etc., can define groupconversations and change over time.

An “entity feed” or “record feed” generally refers to a feed of feeditems about a particular record in the database. Such feed items caninclude feed tracked updates about changes to the record and posts madeby users about the record. An entity feed can be composed of any type offeed item. Such a feed can be displayed on a page such as a web pageassociated with the record, e.g., a home page of the record. As usedherein, a “profile feed” or “user's profile feed” generally refers to afeed of feed items about a particular user. In one example, the feeditems for a profile feed include posts and comments that other usersmake about or send to the particular user, and status updates made bythe particular user. Such a profile feed can be displayed on a pageassociated with the particular user. In another example, feed items in aprofile feed could include posts made by the particular user and feedtracked updates initiated based on actions of the particular user.

While some of the disclosed implementations may be described withreference to a system having an application server providing a front endfor an on-demand database service capable of supporting multipletenants, the disclosed implementations are not limited to multi-tenantdatabases nor deployment on application servers. Some implementationsmay be practiced using various database architectures such as ORACLE®,DB2® by IBM and the like without departing from the scope of theimplementations claimed.

It should be understood that some of the disclosed implementations canbe embodied in the form of control logic using hardware and/or computersoftware in a modular or integrated manner. Other ways and/or methodsare possible using hardware and a combination of hardware and software.

Any of the disclosed implementations may be embodied in various types ofhardware, software, firmware, and combinations thereof. For example,some techniques disclosed herein may be implemented, at least in part,by computer-readable media that include program instructions, stateinformation, etc., for performing various services and operationsdescribed herein. Examples of program instructions include both machinecode, such as produced by a compiler, and files containing higher-levelcode that may be executed by a computing device such as a server orother data processing apparatus using an interpreter. Examples ofcomputer-readable media include, but are not limited to: magnetic mediasuch as hard disks, floppy disks, and magnetic tape; optical media suchas flash memory, compact disk (CD) or digital versatile disk (DVD);magneto-optical media; and hardware devices specially configured tostore program instructions, such as read-only memory (“ROM”) devices andrandom access memory (“RAM”) devices. A computer-readable medium may beany combination of such storage devices.

Any of the operations and techniques described in this application maybe implemented as software code to be executed by a processor using anysuitable computer language such as, for example, Java, C++ or Perlusing, for example, object-oriented techniques. The software code may bestored as a series of instructions or commands on a computer-readablemedium. Computer-readable media encoded with the software/program codemay be packaged with a compatible device or provided separately fromother devices (e.g., via Internet download). Any such computer-readablemedium may reside on or within a single computing device or an entirecomputer system, and may be among other computer-readable media within asystem or network. A computer system or computing device may include amonitor, printer, or other suitable display for providing any of theresults mentioned herein to a user.

While various implementations have been described herein, it should beunderstood that they have been presented by way of example only, and notlimitation. Thus, the breadth and scope of the present applicationshould not be limited by any of the implementations described herein,but should be defined only in accordance with the following andlater-submitted claims and their equivalents.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system comprising: a database systemimplemented using a server system, the database system configurable tocause: providing for interaction with a database identifying a pluralityof web application builder components configured to be used to build aplurality of components of a web application and further configured tobe reusable within a server-hosted web application builder framework,each of the web application builder components comprising a respectiveone or more attributes and comprising a respective one of more componentbehaviors; displaying, on a client device, a user interface for the webapplication builder framework, the user interface comprising one or moredevelopment areas for building the web application based on user input,the one or more development areas comprising the web application buildercomponents; processing a first user input comprising a form of selectingone of the web application builder components; preventing, in responseto the first user input, one of more component behaviors of the selectedweb application builder component; determining one or more buildercomponent behaviors for the selected web application builder componentbased on the form of selecting the web application builder component;presenting the selected web application builder component in the userinterface according to a form corresponding to the one or more buildercomponent behaviors; and storing an updated metadata model representingone or more attributes of the selected web application buildercomponent, the metadata model having been updated based on the firstuser input, the metadata model using one or more connectors configuredto permit communication with the server by one or more entities on theclient device for building the web application.
 2. The system of claim1, wherein the form of selecting the web application builder componentcomprises one or more of: hovering, dragging, dropping, pointing to,clicking on, or gesturing with respect to the selected web applicationbuilder component.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or morecomponent behaviors of the selected web application builder componentand the one or more builder component behaviors are retrieved from ametadata model.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or morecomponent behaviors comprise functions relating to one or moreselectable areas within the web application builder component.
 5. Thesystem of claim 1, wherein the one or more builder component behaviorscomprise functions relating to selecting a representation of a webapplication component, the representation comprising a defined objectinside the one or more development areas.
 6. The system of claim 1,wherein at least one of the one or more builder component behaviors isuser-defined or customized.
 7. The system of claim 1, the databasesystem further configurable to cause: determining a border relating toboundaries of the selected web application builder component within theone or more development areas; and wherein the form of selecting the webapplication builder component corresponds to the border.
 8. The systemof claim 1, wherein the one of more builder component behaviors comprisepresenting, in the user interface, a detailed view of the selected webapplication builder component.
 9. A method comprising: providing forinteraction with a database identifying a plurality of web applicationbuilder components configured to be used to build a plurality ofcomponents of a web application and further configured to be reusablewithin a server-hosted web application builder framework, each of theweb application builder components comprising a respective one or moreattributes and comprising a respective one of more component behaviors;causing, for display on a client device, a user interface for the webapplication builder framework, the user interface comprising one or moredevelopment areas for building the web application based on user input,the one or more development areas comprising the web application buildercomponents; processing a first user input comprising a form of selectingone of the web application builder components; preventing, in responseto the first user input, one of more component behaviors of the selectedweb application builder component; determining one or more buildercomponent behaviors for the selected web application builder componentbased on the form of selecting the web application builder component;presenting the selected web application builder component in the userinterface according to a form corresponding to the one or more buildercomponent behaviors; and causing storage of an updated metadata modelrepresenting one or more attributes of the selected web applicationbuilder component, the metadata model having been updated based on thefirst user input, the metadata model using one or more connectorsconfigured to permit communication with the server by one or moreentities on the client device for building the web application.
 10. Themethod of claim 9, wherein the form of selecting the web applicationbuilder component comprises one or more of: hovering, dragging,dropping, pointing to, clicking on, or gesturing with respect to theselected web application builder component.
 11. The method of claim 9,wherein the one or more component behaviors of the selected webapplication builder component and the one or more builder componentbehaviors are retrieved from a metadata model.
 12. The method of claim9, wherein the one or more component behaviors comprise functionsrelating to one or more selectable areas within the web applicationbuilder component.
 13. The method of claim 9, wherein the one or morebuilder component behaviors comprise functions relating to selecting arepresentation of a web application builder component, therepresentation comprising a defined object inside the one or moredevelopment areas.
 14. The method of claim 9, wherein at least one ofthe one or more builder component behaviors is user-defined orcustomized.
 15. The method of claim 9, further comprising: determining aborder relating to boundaries of the selected web application buildercomponent within the one or more development areas; and wherein the formof selecting the web application builder component corresponds to theborder.
 16. The method of claim 9, wherein the one of more buildercomponent behaviors comprise presenting, in the user interface, adetailed view of the selected web application builder component.
 17. Acomputer program product comprising a non-transitory computer- readablemedium storing computer-readable program code capable of being executedby one or more processors, the program code comprising instructionsconfigurable to cause: providing for interaction with a databaseidentifying a plurality of web application builder components configuredto be used to build a plurality of components of a web application andfurther configured to be reusable within a server-hosted web applicationbuilder framework, each of the web application builder componentscomprising a respective one or more attributes and comprising arespective one of more component behaviors; displaying, on a clientdevice, a user interface for the web application builder framework, theuser interface comprising one or more development areas for building theweb application based on user input, the one or more development areascomprising the web application builder components; processing a firstuser input comprising a form of selecting one of the web applicationbuilder components; preventing, in response to the first user input, oneof more component behaviors of the selected web application buildercomponent; determining one or more builder component behaviors for theselected web application builder component based on the form ofselecting the web application builder component; presenting the selectedweb application builder component in the user interface according to aform corresponding to the one or more builder component behaviors; andstoring an updated metadata model representing one or more attributes ofthe selected web application builder component, the metadata modelhaving been updated based on the first user input, the metadata modelusing one or more connectors configured to permit communication with theserver by one or more entities on the client device for building the webapplication.
 18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein theform of selecting the web application builder component comprises one ormore of: hovering, dragging, dropping, pointing to, clicking on, orgesturing with respect to the selected web application buildercomponent.
 19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the oneor more component behaviors of the selected web application buildercomponent and the one or more builder component behaviors are retrievedfrom a metadata model.
 20. The computer program product of claim 17,wherein the one or more component behaviors comprise functions relatingto one or more selectable areas within the web application buildercomponent.